A rendering for a concept plan by Aimco Apartments at 1550 Eisenhower Drive, Boulder. (Courtesy Image)

If you go

What: Boulder Planning Board meeting

When: 6 p.m. Thursday

Where: Boulder Municipal Building, 1777 Broadway

More info: Also on the agenda is a discussion of a proposed annexation of several enclaves at 55th Street and Arapahoe Avenue

It's the quintessential Boulder-in-2016 development plan: Raze 140 existing housing units and their ring of surface-level parking in order to build a new complex that's denser, more bike-oriented, 100 percent rental and priced at a "market rate."

The proposal is for the 7-acre Eastpointe Apartments plot at 1550 Eisenhower Drive, off Arapahoe Avenue in east Boulder. The city's Planning Board will offer feedback during a concept plan review Thursday night.

Aimco Apartments, a company based in Denver and with more than 800 units across four Boulder properties, purchased the land for $18 million in December 2014.

Now, Aimco envisions replacing the 140 units there with 236 new ones, spread across five different three-story buildings.

The majority of the existing units are two-bedroom, whereas 153 of the proposed new apartments would be either "efficiency" or one-bedroom.

So, while the property would certainly offer a denser housing supply than what stands at Eastpointe today, the net increase in bedrooms (40 percent) is lower than the net increase in units (68 percent) indicates.

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And even though the plan seeks to install significantly more housing on the same amount of land, it also calls for slightly more green space, with features including a community garden, an indoor/outdoor pool, a flower garden, a dog park — all connected by a network of bike- and pedestrian-friendly pathways.

"We see a great opportunity to provide amazing, more beautiful, sustainable greener housing for the neighborhood," said Patti Shwayder, Aimco senior vice president.

"The idea is to remove all the buildings, all the asphalt and build a community with more usable green space, open space, outdoor rooms, and that's very transformational for the area."

Aimco plans to replace all of the outdoor parking with a 300-spot underground lot — a minor reduction from what the city typically requires for spots per capita. These days, though, it's unusual for a Boulder developer not to request permission to under-park a housing site.

If and when the city approves Aimco's plan, the current tenants will have to find new homes. The complex has a nearly 50 percent turnover rate, anyway, but even if that figure holds, about 70 apartments will be vacated.

"While moving is a total pain in the neck, we really bend over backwards and have dedicated relocation folks who make this transition as good as it can be," Shwayder said, adding that "they will have first dibs" on new apartments.

Living at Eastpointe — a typical, mid-level complex — currently costs more than $1,300 for one-bedroom units, and about $2,300 for some two-bedrooms, according to Aimco listings.

The new-and-improved Eastpointe doesn't have a rent schedule yet, Shwayder said, but it'll be "market-rate" — and Boulder's market can get pricey. In fact, a new row of ostensibly "middle-income" townhomes being built now off 28th Street near ManorCare will rent for around $3,000 per two-bedroom.

"Certainly some" of the units at the proposed future Eastpointe would maintain similar rent levels, Shwayder said, but "we don't know at this time" any specifics.

Aimco plans to fulfill its inclusionary housing requirement by providing cash to the city in lieu of affordable units on- or off-site.

"I think that for the in-lieu fee," Shwayder said, the city "can use additional properties and probably get more units than we'd be providing here. These (proposed apartments) are obviously expensive units, and Boulder seems quite eager to work with us on the in-lieu fee."

Meanwhile, diagonal from the Eastpointe site across Arapahoe Avenue, Boulder Community Health is planning a significant expansion to its Foothills Parkway campus, including a new 76,000-square-foot medical building and a five-story parking garage.

A city program launched in 2014 called Envision East Arapahoe was halted months later as other projects took priority, and amid a simmering citywide debate on growth and development. But some of its key aims — including improved transportation in the area — remain on planners' minds as they work with proposals like that set for Eastpointe.

But even if Envision were still alive, the south side of Arapahoe Avenue — where Eastpointe is — already is dense with residential development. In fact, the only reason something so sweeping is now being pitched for the south side is that the property owners are comfortable razing an entire city block to start from scratch.

"In terms of what planners are looking at now, it's largely focused on the northern side of Arapahoe," said Ben Irwin, spokesman for the city's planning staff, "and that's because of the characteristics of the area; the north side is more available for planning, in terms of being more industrial ... while the area south of Arapahoe is largely set in place."

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